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Introduction

A liking for sweet things seems natural to people everywhere. In ancient times people satisfied their desire for sweets with honey. Today sugar is the most widely used sweetener.

Sugar is most often used to sweeten foods and beverages. In earlier times, sugar was used as a sedative, but today it is associated with a number of health problems. It is known, for example, that excessive consumption of sugar can contribute to obesity and promote tooth decay. In addition, sugar has been associated with hyperactivity in children and hypertension in adults. Nevertheless it remains a popular food and flavoring.

“Sugar” is a general term for a category of carbohydrate compounds, but the granules or cubes of common table sugar are specifically sucrose. A group of related compounds belonging to the same group of carbohydrates and termed sugars by chemists are corn sugar (called glucose or dextrose), fruit sugar (called fructose or levulose), milk sugar (lactose), and malt sugar (maltose) (seecarbohydrates). In addition to these compounds there are the relatively undigestible sugars used in “sugarless” candies and gums—manitol and sorbitol.

Sucrose is a disaccharide—that is, it is made up of two simple sugars, or monosaccharides—glucose and fructose. Its chemical formula is C12H22O11. It is one of the sweetest sugars. Taking sucrose as a standard of 1, the sweetness of glucose is 0.5–0.6, that of lactose is 0.27, maltose is 0.6, and fructose, the sweetest, is 1.03–1.5. The common term “sugar” is usually used to refer specifically to sucrose.

Sucrose is a product of the process in plants called photosynthesis—the formation of carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using energy from the sun (seephotosynthesis). Sucrose is the main sugar in the sap of plants. It is present in all green plants, but almost all commercially made sugar comes from sugarcane or sugar beets. Minor sources of commercial sucrose are maple trees, sugar palms (especially date palms), and sorghum.

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) is a giant, thick, perennial grass cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide for its sweet sap. The plant grows in clumps of solid stalks and has graceful, sword-shaped leaves that resemble those of the corn plant. Mature canes may be 10 to 26 feet (3 to 8 meters) tall and 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) in diameter. The color of the stalk ranges from almost white to yellow to deep green, purple, red, or violet.

The sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) is a species of beet that can be grown in temperate or cold climates, where sugarcane will not grow. Sugar is stored in the tapering, white roots of the beet.

Commercial Production

The sugar from sugarcane and sugar beets is transformed into commercial sugar in two stages. First, the sugar is extracted from the plants, then it is refined.

From Sugarcane

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

About 13 percent of sugarcane sap is sucrose. During harvesting, the cane stalks are stripped of their leaves and trimmed for easier handling at the cane mill or sugar factory. In the factory, the stalks are washed and cut into short lengths or shredded. The sugar is removed from the canes by a diffusion process or by milling. In the diffusion process the sugar is separated from the finely cut stalks by dissolving it in hot water or juice. In milling, the juice is squeezed from the rough pulpy mass of the stalks by pressing it between heavy rollers. These are arranged in sets of three. Each set of rollers exerts a greater pressure than the last set. While the cane is passing between the rollers it is sprayed with water to help dissolve additional juice. The waste material, or pulp, that is left after the rolling is called bagasse.

The liquid extracted from the cane is a dark grayish or greenish color and is acidic. Since it contains impurities, it is necessary to use chemicals for clarification. In most instances, milk of lime is added to the raw juice. The juice is immediately heated to the boiling point and then run into settling tanks where the precipitated matter is separated from the clear juice. In order to make a white sugar directly from the cane juice, sulfur dioxide and sometimes phosphoric acid are added to the juice before the milk of lime. The same process is then followed.

The juice is evaporated into a thick syrup and then concentrated by vacuum boiling in several stages. The vacuum allows the mixture to boil at a relatively low temperature to prevent scorching of the sugar syrup. The mixture is boiled until sugar crystallizes out of the liquid, forming a mixture known as massecuite. The raw sugar crystals are then separated from the massecuite by centrifugal machines—perforated, hollow cylinders that revolve rapidly. The syrup, called molasses, is forced out through the holes, but the raw sugar is left inside. Some of the raw sugar is sold as it is, but most of it goes to refineries.

From Sugar Beets

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Each sugar beet contains about 14 teaspoons of sugar in its root. Sugar beets are harvested mechanically. They are “topped” (the top of the beet is cut off and used as cattle feed), loaded, and transported to the processing factory. At the factories the beets are washed, weighed, and run through slicing machines, which cut the beets into thin strips called cossettes. Next the slices are put into a diffuser—either a series of tall, boiler-shaped cylinders, or cells, or an inclined cylinder containing two scroll conveyors. In the diffuser the beet juice is washed out of the slices with hot water. The juice is purified by adding caustic lime and carbon dioxide to the liquid and then filtering it. After filtering, the beet juice is put through processes similar to those used in the manufacture of cane sugar, though beet sugar does not go through the raw sugar stage. The final product cannot be distinguished from cane sugar.

Refining

The extracted sugar crystals are then shipped to refineries. Raw sugar is light brown and slightly sticky because the crystals have a thin film of molasses clinging to them. Refining removes this film and produces white crystals of sugar. First the raw sugar is rinsed of its brownish film. Then the crystals are dissolved in water and the liquid is filtered to remove impurities. The sugar is then crystallized, and the crystals are separated from the liquid by centrifuges and dried in hot air. The liquid must be centrifuged several times. Other methods of refining involve the use of milk of lime, carbon dioxide, and repeated boiling. The refined crystals are classified and stored in bins to be packaged or sent to market.

Types and Grades of Sugar

Most commercial sugar is white granulated sugar that has been processed in refineries, beet-sugar factories, or cane-mill white-sugar factories. These sugars are classified according to grain size as extra-coarse, coarse, standard, fine, or extra-fine granulated. The grain size of extra-coarse granulated is larger than 0.04 inch (1.0 millimeter); that of extra-fine granulated is less than 0.01 inch (0.25 millimeter).

Other types of sugar are produced through slightly different processes than those used for white granulated sugar. Soft yellow and soft brown sugar are made by retaining some of the molasses during processing. These sugars are soft and clingy because the molasses film contains about 35 times more water than does refined white sugar. Other types of sugar include English coffee sugar—large brown crystals with a characteristic caramel flavor. English coffee sugar is produced from successive boilings of refinery liquid. Candy sugar consists of very large white sugar crystals. It is slowly crystallized from very pure liquid during sugar processing and is used mainly by the brewing industry.

Liquid sugar is made from cane or beet sugar chiefly for manufacturing purposes. Cube sugar is produced by molding and pressing selected granular sugar with a sugary liquid to cement the crystals together, then drying the sugar.

Palm sugar is produced in some tropical Asian countries from the juice of date, coconut, and palmyra palms. Maple sugar is produced in Canada and the northern United States from the sap of sugar-maple trees (seeMaple, “Maple Syrup and Sugar”).

Sugar By-products

The major by-products of sugar production are molasses, beet pulp, bagasse fiber, and cane wax. Cane and beet molasses are the syrups that remain after the sugar has been crystallized out. They are used mainly as livestock feed, as is the carbohydrate-rich beet pulp, which remains after the sugar has been extracted from the beet root. Cane molasses is also used for making alcoholic drinks, particularly rum.

Bagasse is the cane fiber that remains after the sugarcane has been rolled. It is so dry that it can be used to fire the mill furnaces that heat the sugar boilers. Some of it may be baled and shipped to factories, where it is pressed into building board. Cane wax is extracted from the dried material that has been filtered out of the sugary liquid during the production of raw cane sugar. It is used in manufacturing polishes, cosmetics, and paper coatings.

History

Sugarcane culture dates from antiquity and probably originated in what is now New Guinea. Its cultivation spread along human migration routes to Southeast Asia, India, and Polynesia. The technology for making sugar by pressing out the cane juice and boiling it down into crystals was developed in about 500 bc in India.

Sugarcane cultivation did not reach Europe until the Middle Ages, when conquering Arabs brought it to Spain. Columbus carried the plant to the West Indies, where it thrived in the favorable climate and soil. Sugarcane cultivation began in what is now the United States in the middle of the 18th century, when cuttings were planted in New Orleans. The first American sugar refinery was built in New York City in 1689, and the industry was finally established by the 1830s.

The cultivation of sugar beets is a comparatively recent development. The sugar beet was grown as a garden vegetable and for fodder long before it was valued for its sugar content. In 1747 sugar was produced experimentally from beets in Germany by the chemist Andreas Marggraf.

The first beet-sugar factory was built in Silesia in 1802, with the encouragement of Frederick William III of Prussia. During the Napoleonic wars, the British blockaded France and cut off the French Empire’s raw sugar supply from the West Indies. Napoleon made huge grants of land and money to establish the beet-sugar industry in France, and under his influence 40 factories to process beet sugar were established. The industry collapsed after Napoleon’s fall but recovered in the 1840s.

Early attempts to establish the beet-sugar industry in the United States were disheartening. From 1838, when the first factory was built, one after another failed. Finally in 1872 a factory in Alvarado, Calif., demonstrated that it could produce sugar profitably. By the end of the century, 30 factories were in operation in the United States.

Sugar Substitutes

Corn syrup and honey have long been used as substitutes for sugar, and in the United States sorghum syrup is sometimes used for the same purpose (seesorghum). In the 20th century, artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamates, aspartame, and Dulcin, or Sucrol, became popular substitutes for sugar. Artificial sweeteners were originally used as sugar substitutes for diabetics and others forced to restrict their intake of sugar, but they became increasingly popular in soft drinks and other foods for people who wished to restrict their intake of calories to control their weight. In general, artificial sweeteners have no food value; they are not metabolized by the body and are excreted unchanged (seesweetener, artificial).

Saccharin was discovered in 1879. It has about 500 times the sweetening power of cane sugar. Although its safety was the subject of intense controversy during the 1970s, it is still used as a sugar substitute. Cyclamates were developed in 1937 and marketed in 1949. They have about 30 times the sweetening power of sucrose. They were banned in 1969 when tests showed them to be potentially harmful to laboratory animals as well as humans, but further investigations did not substantiate the original conclusions. Dulcin, or Sucrol, is no longer used because of its toxic effects. Aspartame, marketed under the trade name NutraSweet, received FDA approval in the early 1980s. Although its components (phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol) occur naturally in foods, aspartame itself does not, and its safety has been the subject of controversy. (See alsocandy; food and nutrition.)

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